1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a data processing system. In particular, the present invention relates to deployment of roles and relationships in a data processing system. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to independent deployment of roles that is local to a relationship in a data processing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
When modeling relationships using enterprise modeling tools, a relationship may correlate two or more semantically equivalent business objects. For example, an order relationship may correlate orders from one system and orders from another system. However, the order relationship is limited to correlate orders only. The order relationship may not correlate other types of business objects, for example, a customer.
A role describes how entities can participate in a relationship. Thus, role definitions are used to capture structure and constraint requirements on particular entities and their manner of participation. For example, for an order relationship, a role of SAP order may be defined for orders from SAP systems and a role of Clarify order may be defined for orders from Clarify systems. SAP is a product available from SAP AG. Clarify is a product available from Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Each role has its own set of properties or attributes that are specified for its semantics.
In a business integration environment, relationships and roles are deployed in applications. An example of a business integration environment is WebSphere® Business Integration Server, a product available from International Business Machines Corporation. Usually, a role is defined as part of the definition of a relationship. This means that a role is embedded within the definition of a relationship. If a new role needs to be added to the system, all applications in the integration environment with the relationship would be affected.